Texting Targets: Examining Racial Violence in the Digital Ecosystem

An influx of racist acts are unfortunately common after an election, but those involving President-elect Donald Trump have been followed by particularly intense periods of hate-fueled violence. 10 days following his victory in 2016, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported 867 post-election hate crimes defined as “harassment and intimidation” towards specific minority racial or ethnic groups. The reported crimes came mostly in the form of graffiti and face-to-face interactions, and often took place in universities and K-12 schools. In reality, these 867 crimes constitute just the reported in-person incidents, depicting what is actually a miniscule percentage of all post-political harassment that goes unreported and largely undercover within digital spaces. Over the past eight years, we have seen how technology and digital forms of harassment amplify hate by enabling instant connectivity and the ease of online anonymity. Things are no different following the 2024 election. 

One day after this year's election, Black people around the country began receiving text messages from anonymous numbers telling them that they were “selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation.” Along with working professionals, college students and children were also among the targets of these inflammatory messages–many of which used their legal names, referenced their general location, and sometimes ended with “Sincerely, A TRUMP SUPPORTER.”

Although these texts are not officially affiliated with the Trump campaign, this proud proclamation still looks to signify the regressive sentiment embedded into his campaign slogan and evidently embodied by his supporters who are actively threatening Black people with re-enslavement. 

CBS News was able to reach an individual linked to sending these racist texts who claimed it was intended as a prank. After stating this, the individual abruptly hung up the call and declined all further calls for comment. Though the messages are currently being investigated by the FBI, FCC, and state authorities, no individual or group has been held accountable.

When it comes to demographic-based harassment, it is already extremely difficult to first classify and then prosecute someone for a hate crime. Harassment mediated through technology is a particularly menacing challenge. Anonymity, access, and even the free speech and moderation policies placed by online platforms themselves have resulted in the delegitimization of online harassment.This has effectively enabled individuals to commit these acts, and too often get away with them. And if large, blatant acts of racism are permitted, it creates an environment where frequent subtle forms of racism can circulate unchecked.

Every time a Black individual logs onto social media, it is likely they will witness the circulation of white supremacy ideologies, stereotyping, dehumanization, digital blackface, and many other forms of racial violence presented under the guise of jokes or healthy-spirited discourse. Without actively seeking these posts, Black individuals are more likely to see posts related to race than their white counterparts, and this disproportionate visibility is another form of antagonism in and of itself. Professor and scholar Andrè Brock refers to this idea as "weak-tie racism" in his book Distributed Blackness: African American Cybercultures. Brock defines weak-tie racism as “racism indirectly experienced through digital representation, distribution, interactivity, and algorithmic repetition of anti-blackness towards a specific Black body or bodies but abstracted through social media participation,” often exacted through the liking, sharing, reposting, and retweeting of racist content. Through these collective actions of engagement,  Brock argues that racism actively occurs well after a post is made.

Weak-tie racism could be considered one of the most consistently occurring and dominant forces of racism that is mediated through technology, so what makes the text message situation particularly scary is how targeted and organized it was. This is not someone’s algorithm placing an offensive video on their For You Page or stumbling upon a racist tweet due to oppositional interaction. This was a strategic attack on members of the Black community to incite fear and intimidate, and it did so to a point where some recipients were reportedly scared to leave their homes the next day. 

It is important to acknowledge that these texts were not only sent in a time with high racial tensions, but also in a time where personal information is being extracted for political gain. Due to this, locating the senders and discovering how Black people’s demographic data was apprehended will be difficult, but that emphasizes exactly why these investigations must be followed through. With the doubtlessly large amount of public attention this case has received, these text messages will inevitably inspire harmful mimicry.

This situation demonstrates how technology facilitates both distance and pointed connectivity, thereby allowing hate crimes to go unacknowledged for what they are. Although it is uncertain if any specific individuals or groups will be named and prosecuted as investigations continue, doing so would indicate that tech-based harassment is finally being taken seriously. Above all, it would also serve to remind us all that the anonymity of technology provides no exemption from accountability.